My Friday Five: On Henrik Stenson & RNC Follies

7/22/2016

Photo: Chris White 1. Trucks for Duke Homestead I wanted to kick off this week's post with a quick word about a fundraising eve...

Photo: Chris White

1. Trucks for Duke Homestead

I wanted to kick off this week's post with a quick word about a fundraising event coming up soon at Duke Homestead. You may recall that I interned at the historic site in 2014 and I've stayed connected since. Duke Homestead holds several events throughout the year and is holding a special fundraiser called "Trucks for Duke Homestead" on August 21. According to the event's page, there will be live music, tours of the historic area on site and several food trucks. Tickets are $50 and benefit the Duke Homestead Education & History Corporation, which was established in 1974 to support the site. One ticket gets you a plate of food from each of the food trucks and sharing is encouraged - so it's not that bad of a deal!

Only 200 tickets are available so be sure to get yours soon! For more info, click here.

2. Congrats, Henrik!

A huge congratulations to Henrik Stenson on earning the 2016 Open Championship, his first career major. The Open became a two-man tournament, with Stenson and Phil Mickelson leaving the rest of the field in the dust - by 10 strokes at times - to set up an epic duel in the final round. The pair went back and forth until Stenson pulled ahead for good near the end of the round, sinking a 50+ foot putt and making some other great shots along the way. In the end, Stenson's 8-under 63 in the final round tied Johnny Miller for the lowest closing round by a major champion. Additionally, Stenson's 20-under, 264 finish was the lowest ever in a major. Although Mickelson is my favorite player, Stenson played an incredible round and tournament. It was well deserved for Stenson and his battle with Mickelson was the best round of golf I've seen.

3. The RNC Follies

The Republican National Convention provided a lot of great material for me to dissect and write about - and make fun of. There was plagiarism of a part of Michelle Obama's speech from the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Rudy Giuliani babbling on about something. Ted Cruz not endorsing Donald Trump during his speech - and subsequently getting booed off the stage. Falling asleep during Trump's VP pick (Mike Pence's) speech. Even the Trumpster himself. The four-day shindig was interesting to say the least and just what I expected. Believe it or not, I decided to watch Trump's acceptance speech. It, too, was just what I expected. I felt like I'd been scolded at after listening to his marathon, 74-minute speech. It's one thing to project your voice, it's another thing to speak in a manner that makes listeners feel like they've been yelled at. C'mon man! Beyond that, I thought it was weird - but not surprising - that Trump coughed up "LGBTQ" during his speech like he'd never uttered those five letters together before.

The best part of the past four days has been tuning in to The Late Show. The show aired live from the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York where host, Stephen Colbert, covered the RNC like no one else. Thursday night's show was the best yet, complete with a visit from former host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart. In the video below, Stewart trolled the RNC, calling out FAUX News (a.k.a FOX News) host Sean Hannity's flip flopping when talking about Pres. Obama and Trump. It was a thing of sheer beauty!

4.Twitter Verification for All?

This is not a drill. Twitter officials announced this week that they are unwrapping the once secretive process for account verification (y'know that little blue check mark thing). Not only was verification secretive, it seemed next to impossible to achieve unless you were a celebrity or someone with inside connections. Now, Twitter is making the process a bit more open. Does that mean anyone can get that little blue check mark? Sadly, no, still. According to an article from PC World, Twitter will only consider "accounts of public interest, particularly those maintained by individuals and organizations in 'music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas.'” So unless you think your account serves one of these purposes, consider your hopes for a blue check mark to be dashed.

P.S. I may fill out the form to see if my account gets verified. Not because I'm self-absorbed. It would make for a pretty darn good update story on a later "My Friday Five" post!

5. Homeless World Cup

I'd like to end this week's post with something awesome. I happened to come across a story about the Homeless World Cup. I'd never heard of it before and was not only intrigued by it but I was touched. The Homeless World Cup was co-founded in 2001 by Mel Young and Harald Schmied. Since its inception, the event has utilized the game of football (a.k.a. soccer) to provide meaningful experiences to more than 100,000 homeless people in more than 70 countries worldwide annually. Just through sports! To paraphrase Young, it's the small things, people. My hats off to everyone at this beautiful organization!